Grenfell: for the victims

Author's Note: Joyce Grenfell (1910-1979) was a British actor, singer and stage entertainer who specialised in comic monologues and achieved huge popularity in the decades following World War Two. Among her best-known imaginary monologue-speakers was a teacher of very young children, among them George who was more than once asked to stop doing something (nature undisclosed). Grenfell Tower was named in her memory.

George Osborne was Chancellor of the Exchequer between 2010 and 2016. He – or his advisors – promoted the drastic and divisive creed of ‘austerity’ that inflicted great damage on many aspects of British social, communal and political life. The cuts to local authority spending on health and safety regulation were adduced by some as having contributed to the catastrophic fire at Grenfell Tower.

'George, don't do that': Joyce Grenfell in the roleOf hard-pressed infant teacher, trying notTo let it get her down or lose control,But at a stage where things have clearly got Just a bit much and now she's left in soleCharge of this endlessly demanding lotOf noisy five-year-olds. What really stoleThe show was having listeners wonder whatHe, George, was doing and how she'd cajoleHim out of doing it, first by a spotOf gentle blandishment, then, as the tollOn her nerves grew, by adding just a shotOf reprimand, and lastly – as the wholeClass seemed to sense a lesson gone to pot – By one more plea before the bell, with drollYet perfect timing, closed her lesson-slot.

'George, don't do that': don't give us all that spielAbout austerity, the debt, how we're'All in this thing together', or how we'llJust have to pull our belts in and adhereTo your fine plan for cutting a great dealWith your old banker pals. We've done 'austere'For long enough to guess it's us who'll feelThe pinch alright and them who'll stand to clearA fortune when the billions you stealFrom those who put the work in yield their year-On-year fat bonus. Know what made it real,What brought it home, that sense we had of sheerUnutterable rage? That you could sealYour devil's pact and no one interfereTo bring those crooks to justice or revealThe swindle in a reckoning more severe.

'George, don't do that': for Christ's sake don't pretendYou haven't grasped the Grenfell link, or takeThe standard Tory view that one can bendThe safety rules and regs for profit's sakeSo long as those affected are low-endIn status terms, with no financial stakeOr friends and influence that might extendBeyond their local patch. And, just to makeThe point more plainly: when the plan’s to spendA bit less on the stuff for those fire-breakPartitions in the high-rise towers, or mendThe cracks less frequently, it's in the wakeOf all your government directives pennedBy jobsworth types who know just how the cakeGets sliced. Losers and immigrants, my friend:Don’t fret too much if cladding starts to flake.

You'll do that, George, you'll let the paupers fry(Crass metaphor: forgive the vulgar taste)So long as they're the ones who just get by,Or don't, while you and your lot are well-placedTo fix it so that no-one gets a tryAt changing things. If we lament the wasteOf talents, lives, or chances not to dieA needless death because you lot embraced'Austerity', then no doubt you'll replyWith some glib chunk of right-wing wisdom basedOn trickle-down. This aims to justifyWhat's really plain old dog-eat-dog showcasedIn think-tank talk to stop us asking whyThey've not run riot, those survivors facedWith the charred tower each day while some rich guyLike you says let's not act with too much haste.

But how to stop you, George, how make the kindOf full-scale revolution that they’ll need,Those tenants yet to come, if we're to findSome remedy for scenes like this and heedThe hard-won lesson that it leaves behind,That blackened witness to the Osborne creedThat, by malignant chemistry, combinedMammon with Moloch, your sharp-suited greedWith everything the system does to grindIts victims down. But then, a point that we'dDo well to keep continually in mind Is how keen the survivors were to leadDiscussion back to life-hopes intertwinedWith Grenfell Tower and show how we'll misreadTheir testimony should our anger blindUs to the fact that those hopes may succeed

Despite the heaviest odds. That's because they'reFlat contrary to every point of yourUnspoken doctrine: that the poor should bearThe greatest burden just because they're poor, Or just because they've not yet done their shareTo fill the vast tax-coffers destined forLong-planned redistribution on the fair(By your lights) principle which goes: the moreYe have, the more shall what ye have declareYou worth ten times as much. The Grenfell scoreLooks bad on your side, George, if we compareYour moral credit-rating (through the floor!)To high-rise tenants with no cash to spareYet with the guts and dignity to shoreAgainst disaster. 'Ta'en too little care'You have, like Lear; these deaths you can't ignore.

Christopher Norris is Distinguished Research Professor in Philosophy at the University of Cardiff. He is the author of more than thirty books on aspects of philosophy, politics, literature, the history of ideas, and music.